In order to avoid players experiencing a distracting bug, the team were forced to make cunning use of a chair. In one section, you get to pet Tonia, a cat who’s something of a recurring motif in the game. Making such a large demo wasn’t without its challenges, however. Notes and other bits of ephemera relate bits of story without resorting to cutscenes or lengthy voice-overs. “You can sneak, go out guns blazing, or even do some platforming and optional puzzling to gain an advantage.” “In most cases, we give the player several options to engage with tough situations, like most boss encounters in the game,” Matshulski says. It’s a tiny bit Metroidvania.”Īs for the more action-oriented sections of the game, In Sound Mind’s creators are designing set-pieces that can be approached from a multitude of angles. So these mechanics combine, and new, more challenging puzzles appear. In the hub area, which connects the different sections of the game, you slowly unlock more and more areas as you progress in the game and find more tools to use. We used the washing machines in the next room so that the player can manipulate their fuses and use them to fix the elevators… We try to focus on a theme for every puzzle. It’s broken, of course, and you have to fix it. For example, we wanted to put an emphasis on the elevator at the start, so it would be a reward to ride it. “I start from the solution and break it into parts. So what goes into designing a puzzle that involves repairing a vibrating washing machine? “When I approach a new puzzle, the process for me is to reverse-engineer it,” explains Matshulski. Lighting plays a big part in In Sound Mind’s atmosphere, with your torch requiring steady supplies of fresh batteries to keep it topped up. It took so much more work to polish at this early stage, but it was worth it – we learned so much more about what works and what doesn’t.” “But we felt like that wouldn’t be a good representation of the game, so we went ahead and decided to release an entire area, a full ‘tape’. “We originally tried to release a ‘normal’ demo in length – something like 20 minutes of gameplay,” Tal explains. On Steam, you’ll find a chunky one-hour plus demo that showcases how each of these areas (or ‘tapes’) plays out: from the slow build-up of solving puzzles and unlocking new areas – there’s an entertaining conundrum involving malfunctioning washing machines in here that we greatly appreciated – to the mounting sense of dread as the spooks close in near the end. “Their character and struggles connect you to a bigger conspiracy that unravels through the game.” Gradually, however, the game evolved from a game about horrifying boss fights into something more low-key and ominous: a nineties-set mystery where every note and item you find lying around tells you more about your patients’ stories: “You’ll find audio tapes, and each one unravels a new section, where the emphasis and the game mechanic follow the patient’s story,” explains producer and studio co-founder Ido Tal. In fact, the game’s creative director Hen Matshulski envisioned the game as “like Shadow of the Colossus, but horror,” when it was first conceived back in 2007. On one hand, there’s the suspenseful build-up of exploring areas, finding hidden items, and finding keys to locked doors on the other, there are sequences where you’ll be gunning down demonic entities with your trusty revolver. In Sound Min d draws influence from popular horror games, but with features like early weapon crafting, it is unique enough to stand out on its own.In Sound Mind is the first full game from We Create Stuff, an indie studio that previously brought us Nightmare House 2 – a free-to-play horror shooter built in Valve’s Source Engine – and it’s a chiller full of contrasts. The gun will have eight bullets to start, and more can be found throughout the game. After getting all three pieces, the gun can be crafted at a table next to the switch that turned on the lights at the beginning of the game. On the second floor, there is a vending machine with boxes that can be used to reach the top where the pistol slide is hidden. The pistol slide is the easiest piece to find. The pistol barrel is underneath the table. Go to the left and, near the end of the hall, go into the maintenance room on the right. Grabbing the button allows players to move on to the next area where there's a long hallway with two paths. After listening to the cassettes, a cat will be on Desmond's desk and knocks a button onto the floor. At the point in the story when Desmond is listening back to his recordings, the pistol barrel will become available.
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